Changing filenames on blog export

Weblog
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I’m not sure if this is a bug or not but it’s a weird inconsistency.

I noticed today on an export and comparing to a previous export that all sorts of filenames (which are date-based in the export) had been regenerated based upon the fact that Daylight Saving just started. In other words, all sorts of posts suddenly had new filenames one hour off of their previous filenames.

I don’t know that this actually has any impact on the weblog service, per se, and it might just be poking my OCD because it made a mess of how I was doing some Apple Shortcuts post retrieval, and I’m not sure how to address it.

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I’ve just adjusted the export code to favor using the post date provided in post metadata, which means that this shouldn’t change with DST stuff. Let me know how that looks on your end.

I’m totally open to further adjusting the export filenames (no one has shared any feedback on exporting until now), including adding slugs or anything else that might be useful. I could also see this becoming a configuration thing so everyone can get the exact filenames that they want on export.

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A related export issue: all the post filenames are the date plus a bunch of characters unrelated to the post title. Is there a way to make the filenames reflective of the post title?

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I think that’s a great idea. Polling @bix since he’s built a sort of workflow around exports — would that change break anything? Obviously this should be made a preference or configuration item but I’m fine with changing the default behavior as long as it’s not going to break things for others.

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I’m pretty open to whatever because I’ve mostly just been tinkering and not built anything I’m somehow wedded to.

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Thanks @bix. I’ve gone ahead and updated it, so the exports will now look more like this:

Screenshot 2023-03-21 at 12.38.39 AM
Screenshot 2023-03-21 at 12.38.39 AM3194×972 418 KB

This will respect titleless posts, too, using the auto-generated pseudo-titles.

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One thing, not that I know the answer: the timestamps are being driven literally by the Date:front matter, which means that if (for whatever reason) you’ve used different date formats in the front matter over your range of posts, the filenames are inconsistent.

While I do think that filenames should include the date, driven by front matter (and specifically I like the date+slug model, for sure), I feel like they should be in a consistent format?

I’m not sure how you drive what format. Maybe either a new configuration setting, or based on Date format: in config?